I can’t believe it, but it’s that time of year again. At this very moment thousands of web geeks are descending on Austin from around the globe. Be sure and say hello if you run into me.

If you’re in town today, come join members of Refresh Austin for pints at The Gingerman. Otherwise, you’re welcome to join us for a Refresh lunch @ BD Riley’s on Friday and at the Phizzpop Design Challenge monday night!

I just barely had time this morning to finally give the panel schedule a thorough perusal. My tentative schedule can be found at http://sched.org/sxsw2008/atxryan.

I was able to hang out with fellow Refresh Austin members (Alex Jones, Tim Thompson, Grant Hutchins, Justin Perkins), former Statesman.com coworkers (Nick Welp, Wendy Mitchell, Omar Gallaga, and Jason Meek), and Geek Austin’s Lynn Bender and Michelle Greer.

It was also great to meet up with new Twitter friend LaniAR of rerevealed.com and new contact Benn Rosales of SinglePointe Realty. They’re both promoting better use of technology and media in real estate via Agent Genius.

Oh, and the Southern Sirens are looking to be booked for a SXSW day party or evening event.

“Knowing that our continued existence is far from guaranteed makes us willing to fight (when we can) what we see as damaging to SXSW. The struggle is over who is ultimately going to control SXSW, our organization or guerrilla marketers backed by corporate interests. If SXSW loses, then SXSW eventually disappears. SXSW exists only because more entities choose to pursue a symbiotic relationship with us rather than a parasitic one. However, every year more marketing groups representing huge multinational corporations and their local proxies choose to feed off of us.” – Roland Swenson

He makes a good point, but I fundamentally disagree with the way SXSW approaches this issue. Most of the commenters to his interview do as well.

Read the entire interview here.

The party will be held at Maggie Mae’s on Monday, March 10th at 7:00 PM. You can find more details at http://www.refreshaustin.org/2008/refresh-austins-sxswi-party/.

Come out to see the great work the PhizzPop competitors have created, have drinks and conversations with Refreshers and other geeks from around the world, and have a chance to win thousands in prizes.

I hope to see you out there!

In a word: Awesome.

I met new great people and hung out with people I already knew were great. I’m still exhausted. I slept so little and drank so much each night! In fact, just by listing all of the evening events I somehow crawled to below, I realize that I must’ve drank an amazing amount of free booze. That alone was reimbursement for the badge.

I’ll come back and edit this post to include podcast links or other corollary material as they become available. I’m still fleshing this post out and it’s as much for my memory as it is for anyone who wishes to read it.

Thursday, March 8th
I had lunch with PPK from QuirksMode.org, Marla Erwin (a fellow Refresher) and some of her coworkers at the soon-to-be-gone Las Manitas.
Later that evening PPK, Alex Jones, Paul Menard, and I discussed Austin, cover bands, The Netherlands and, of course, web development over happy hour drinks at 219 West.

Friday, March 9th

My coworkers — Tom, Ginny, Jacob, Wendy — and I walked over to the convention center at 3pm thinking that we’d be able to zip in and grab our badges, avoiding the lunch and after-work crowds. We were wrong.

We finally did get our badges and then headed over to the SXSW tent for what would be the first of MANY free beers. I would’ve loved to make it to the first panel, How to Rawk SXSW, but I had to rush back to the office in order to finalize some projects before taking the next few days off.

Kicking off the evening was Friday Night Mix at Six sponsored by Porter Novelli where I had my first chance to mingle with other conference attendees as well as a couple of my attendees.

Saturday, March 10th
This would be the only day I woke up early enough to make it to the first panels at 10:00am.

Met and talked with Chris Osborn about his new Austin Happy Hour Guide publication, The Froggg

Panel :

Met some Chrispian Burks and some other folks from Alabama with 451 Press. Hopefully they’ll be starting up a Refresh group in their own city of Huntsville.

Fox Interactive Media Pre-Party @ Six
Opening Night Happy Hour @ Whiskey Bar
frog design SXSW Opening Party @ the old Fox and Hound
AMODA Digital Showcase @ Mohawk

Sunday, March 11th
Talked with Jonathan Boutelle, CTO of slideshare.net.

Burgers and beer @ Casino El Camino
Web Awards After-Party @ Club de Ville
CHOW / Consumating / Webshots Party @ Mohawk

Monday, March 12th
Had lunch with Laura Fries and discussed the future of AltWeeklies.com
Met Richard Vickers, the guy behind 15×15.org. He also took 15 seconds of video of me rambling about something, but I don’t know if it made it onto his site.

Mozilla Firefox & Democracy Player BBQ
The Great British Booze-up @ Lava Lounge
Nerve, Salon, the Onion, College Humor party @ Club de Ville
Toadies concert! @ Stubb’s
PayPal’s SXSW Showdown @ Lucky Lounge

Tuesday, March 13th
AIR Interactive Wrap-Up Party @ Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant
Media Temple Closing Party
facebook friends.get Developer Party @ Hi-Lo

more coming very soon!

Disclaimer: I work for the Austin American-Statesman; provider of Statesman.com and Austin360.com. Congratulatory praise goes to the Austin360 editorial staff and my coworker Ginny Min for their work and quick turnaround.

Tonight Austin360 unveiled their newest SXSW guide to day parties and side events separate from the main conference offerings. If you’re smart enough to avoid the impossible-to-get-into downtown venues and you decided to skip the badge/wristband this year (as you probably did last year and the year before that), SXSW day parties and media mixers are where it’s at.

I present to you the Austin360.com Guide to SXSW 2007 Side Parties.

Using this tool you are able to view, at a glance, all of the various events going on in conjunction or auxiliary to SXSW. Select a date range and search for Film, Interactive, or Music events that are FREE and open to the public, and with or without free drinks & food. Or, narrow down your selections by venue or artist to be able to quickly see who’s playing where & when.

Most of these events are culled from this list. Other events come from sites such as showlistaustin.com, donewaiting.com and austinist.com who tirelessly aggregate all the party info and keep their loyal readers informed. Myself included.

You do have a wristband or Music badge? Then use this search tool to scope out all the official SXSW acts and venues. And don’t forget Austinist’s own Interactive Guide to SXSW.

With all of these tools at your disposal, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to rock SXSW!